TORONTO — Aaron Judge has emerged as the biggest crowd puller, as the regular season enters its last leg. Despite all pressure, glare, and unable to hit a home run for six games in a row, the Yankees slugger is focused on making sure his team wins the AL East division.
The power hitter is committed to his team over his individual record and he has decided not to take rest off until the Yankees became the division title holders.
On Monday night, Aaron Judge led off and started in right field, making it 47 in a row. This season, he has only missed four games. After the game, the player confirmed that he was feeling “as good as I can be” physically after starting 46 straight games.
Judge is close to breaking Roger Maris’s record of 61 home runs in the American League. As a result, Aaron Boone has been talking to Judge before and after games about when he might give him a full day off.
But the slugger probably won’t get to rest for a while.
Judge started as the designated hitter on Sunday night but remained at 60th home run in a 2-0 win over the Red Sox. After the game, he said that he doesn’t see himself taking a break in the near future, but he added a caveat. According to him,
“Oh, I’m playing until we win this division and put ourselves in a good position. I won’t be asking for any day off.”
Aaron Judge hadn’t hit a home run for six games after having his home run number 60 this season last Tuesday.
When the Yankees played the Blue Jays on Monday night, they needed to win two games to become the AL East division title holders. They can get a first-round bye, and have a home-field advantage in the Division Series too.
One win in this series would give the Yankees the championship, but Judge didn’t sound like he needed or wanted a break until his team had it.
Aaron Judge was in the lead in all three Triple Crown categories as of Monday (he was hitting .3143, just ahead of Boston’s Xander Bogaerts (.3137) and Minnesota’s Luis Arraez (.3130)). Boone said that the Yankees having three off days in an eight-day stretch earlier this month would be a big favor to them.
Aaron Judge too agreed and told:
“One thing that’s helped us out is this month of September is we’ve had some nice off-days sprinkled in. Because I think we kind of went through it earlier in the year, had a couple of 20 straight, back-to-back. These off days we’ve had sprinkled in here after a couple of series have really helped me out and helped this team out, a little bit to stay healthy and be where we need to be. So I’m feeling great, ready to go.”
Even though a silly story about Aaron Judge turning desperate to catch Maris started to spread toward the end of the homestand, the numbers don’t support it. Judge went 5-for-19 in six games, hit 60th home run, three doubles, and walked seven times for a 1.040 OPS. At the start of Monday night’s game, he hit a single to right field against Kevin Gausman and scored when Gleyber Torres hit a sacrifice fly. He then walked, and a pitch that the Yankees thought was low got him called out on strikes.
One scout for the Yankees in the American League said:
“He just missed some pitches, but he’s also not seeing much to hit, he’s hitting the ball as it comes to him, just like the best hitters do. If he’s pressing, I didn’t see it; no player would turn down a 1.040 OPS in any six-game stretch.”
Despite the fact that the circus-like atmosphere often surrounded the homestand (“I like the circus,” Boone said), neither Boone nor Judge voiced any sadness that the milestone homers did not occur at home.
Aaron Judge said, “You can’t think that way.” “This is not our last game at home, so don’t worry too much.” This weekend, the Yankees have three more home games against the Orioles.
Boone shook his head in response to the same question.
“No. We just went 6-0 on the homestand, he was right in the middle of all it. The script will play out. It’s the drama of sport. Things happen if and when they’re supposed to. You’re competing at the highest level, you can’t just push buttons to have things happen. So just proud of the way he’s handling it and continuing to be the central figure in us winning games.”
Aaron stays focused on his game and on his bat.
Should the Yankees give one or two games off to Aaron Judge?
